Exanima Beta


Project Lead
  • New armour skill technique, Security. Master rank is now achievable
  • Shield blocking is no longer completely broken! Still more work to do though
  • Experience from arena matches is now based on what you do in combat, even when losing
  • Roster view now shows which characters need new training
  • Shop stock and turnover increased
  • Improved camera tracking smoothness
  • Improved item colour randomisation
  • Numerous fixes and tweaks


"Confidence in your armour allows you to continue attacks while receiving weaker blows."

This and other new mechanics are being introduced to solve the problem of light fast weapons being a good choice against heavily armoured opponents, where clearly the opposite should apply. The reason for this is the interruption on hit, hitting first can prevent someone with a heavier weapon from ever attacking succesfully. Heavily armoured opponents could essentially be "stunlocked" by fast weapons landing weak hits.

The recently introduced momentum mechanic means that once a swing has gained momentum it cannot be instantly interrupted, heavier weapons naturally have more momentum than light weapons.

This skill technique, and a similar one being introduced for shields, allow weaker hits that are mostly mitigated by armour to be largely ignored, and the attack to continue, even if it has not yet gained momentum. The strike will still be weaker as a result, depending on the impact, but not completely ineffective.

Note that the effects of the skill is proportional to how much of the force and damage of the blow was mitigated by your armour, it will have no effect when wearing no armour or being hit on exposed parts of your body.

This is overall more realistic, makes different weapons effective at what they are designed to do, and promotes skillful play over cheesy tactics.


The placeholder experience system for the arena has been replaced with a proper one. Experience is now awarded to each combatant based on what they did during the fight. This includes successful hits, parries, blocks and damage dealt.

In team battles experience is shared amongst combatants based on what they did during the fight. The system is designed to also reward defensive roles in teams. It is not possible to earn more experience by protracting a fight, the total experience that can be gained is fixed.

Experience is now also awarded when the match is lost, or when not all opponents in an Elimination are defeated. If 50% of the opponents' health remains when the match or round ends, 50% of the total xp is gained. In Fray matches being more active in the fray will result in more experience gained.

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Great idea with the fray. I was wondering if it was really going to be as easy as moving out of the way to let everyone knock each other out, then jumping all over the last man standing (who is already beaten up) to win. Strategic for self preservation, but definitely not worth the same amount of experience as jumping in. So, that's great.

Same with the small and fast weapons. Although, I don't think I can get away from the sword over the long pole arms, even the halbred. I like the fluid dancing and weaving to much.

Will there eventually be expert or master level one-handed weapons?

Also, I'm guessing you'll eventually bring down the total points for Master from 60? Expert is at 30 and it causes me to really consider my options: I'm fairly well armoured up, but have no room for a shield or helmet unless i want to drop something else... which I don't. But with the Master at 60, I think my guy is pretty much all geared up at 41... unless I'm missing something.

One final note, will there be the ability to arrange your inventory so it will stay that way. For those of us with OCD issues (not me of course), I can rearrange and order my inventory into something close to an orderly fashion, but the minute i close it it's back to wondering where the hell the couters went.

Anyway, keep it up! I'm just so amazed at how this game is turning out, the gameplay and control. Thanks as always.


This update is magnificent! I recently bought the early access version of Exanima on steam, and just being able to see the progression of development in the short span of time I've owned the game is astounding. Great work, devs!


I don't exactly know which one of the latest updates caused this... but I'm no longer experiencing bullet-time and Benny Hill modes! :D This improvement combined with almost constant 60 FPS creates a perfect uninterrupted experience - the one I've been waiting for since playing Exanima for the first time! :D


EDIT: Seems I was a bit too hasty on that :p After reaching Level 2 with my second character I've encountered couple of massive slow downs (followed by fast forwards of course) in some places. But anyway, it still occurs WAY less frequently than it was before (eg. no slow downs AT ALL during Fray fights).
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Just a small update, here's the changelog:

  • Smoother and cleaner leg movement in combat
  • New pieces of armour added
  • More items added to story mode
  • Numerous bug fixes and tweaks


mine was good, but started a new one just in case
maybe your character died in battle and you just didn't notice it?


Oh damn that is what happened. I usually just quit Exanima before it saves when someone dies but I guess it didn't work this time.


Big content update, or mostly fixes Tony? If you know that is.
Nope, not a content update. The upcoming update focuses on adding KO mechanics instead of dying when you still have red health remaining, weapon hot swapping, improved footwork and movements, improved thrusts, a bunch of fixes and tweaks to various other things.

Madoc is working on integrating the terrain system for the remaining maps in Exanima so they'll be a while yet.


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